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Opening Ceremony event in New York




Here I am with with a post about Opening Ceremony event in collaboration with American Express that took place last week in New York but unfortunately I couldn't go because something came up right before the event... I missed a great fashion night but still I want to show you what happened there.
Photos courtesy to Kaisa Talaga PR Coordinator.







Did you slip and fall into your garbage can? There’s a code for that!

Did you slip and fall into your garbage can? There’s a code for that!


The Affordable Care Act has forced insurance costs higher, encouraged many employers to bail out of providing health plans for their employees or cut employees or reduce hours to below the full-time threshold to avoid the higher costs, and has unleashed thousands of pages of new regulations. But intrepid federal bureaucrats charge ahead with even more requirements for providers, one of which is a revamping of the codes used to identify the medical services that providers use to bill insurers.

Currently, there about 18,000 such codes and one might be fooled into believing that is enough. But the devoted folks who get paid to generate new codes have been hard at work revamping the code system and the new list contains nearly 8 times the former number, checking in at 140,000 medical codes. The feds reason that more specific information is needed to adequately communicate what doctors and hospitals do for their patients, as well as what patients may have done to require a visit to a provider.

New codes describe precisely what bone was broken, or which eye was blackened, and tell insurers whether your injury occurred in, for example, an opera house, an art gallery, on a squash court, or in one of nine locations in and around a mobile home.

Some of them push the limits of propriety. Code R46.1 is for "bizarre personal appearance," while code R46.0 is for "very low level of personal hygiene." Others tell insurers whether an injury caused by walking into a lamppost was the "initial encounter," or a "subsequent encounter."

There is a group of codes that clarify whether you were injured while sewing, ironing, crocheting, doing handcrafts, knitting, or my personal favorite, playing a brass instrument. (Brass players are now churning out imaginative scenarios for how these injuries might have occurred.) There is also a code indicating that a patient's injury occurred in a chicken coup.

Speaking of birds, there are 72 codes for patients who have run afoul of these creatures, and being bitten by a parrot has a different code than if said parrot flies into you, or if you are bitten or flown into by a macaw or a goose. There are nine different codes for each of the six different species of bird.

The folks that developed the system—generally known as ICD-10, for International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision—say "the codes will provide a more exact and up-to-date accounting of diagnoses and hospital inpatient procedures, which could improve payment strategies and care guidelines," and their use is scheduled to be required in two years. Pat Brooks, senior technical adviser at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services explains that "It's for accuracy of data and quality of care."

As a side note, healthcare reform, known more commonly as Obamacare, is deemed so important that the furloughs that befell air traffic controllers did not extend to Obamacare regulators and code generators, according to Gary Cohen, director of the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight, who said that his office has not cut its workers’ hours and pay as a result of the automatic budget cuts that went into effect in March. This information should help convince doubters that the pain of the sequester is a conscious political choice of the administration, and not a requirement of the sequester.

While federal bureaucrats are busy, busy, busy improving the healthcare system with mountains of new regulations and charge codes, some of the people who actually provide care are taking different approaches, some of them good, and some not.

A recent Deloitte Center for Health Solutions survey of over 600 doctors reveals that 6 in 10 may retire earlier than they had planned, and will do so in the next three years, due to the effects of the Affordable Care Act on how they practice medicine.

Further, many providers will leave the private sector to work for hospitals or accountable care organizations, and others are fighting back against massive government interference in the doctor-patient relationship by reverting to an older direct primary care model that eschews health insurance in favor of fee-for-services, such as an office visit for $20 or a house call for $100. Some offer a membership plan where patients pay a set fee per month for physician services.

Getting away from health insurance, government regulations and other requirements reduces costs substantially, allowing doctors to provide services at affordable prices, and has the further advantage of allowing doctors to escape "assembly line medicine," all of which may benefit the relationship between providers and patients. In contrast to Obamacare, this is a real improvement in the system.

Finally, even supporters of this Rube Goldberg-like contrivance are starting to realize its boundless weaknesses. Senator Max Baucus, (D-Mon.), one of the Affordable Care Act’s designers and strong backers, told Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius during a Senate committee hearing that he sees "a huge train wreck coming down."

It's a shame Sen. Baucus and the other blind supporters didn't do their homework before the measure passed the Congress, and save the country much pain and suffering. But perhaps it’s not too late to reverse course.

Obama's Cloward-Piven Strategy Taking Longer Than Expected ... J. D. Longstreet

Obama's Cloward-Piven Strategy Taking Longer Than Expected    ...   J. D. Longstreet
Obama's Cloward-Piven Strategy Taking Longer Than Expected
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

******************************

Obama's plan to fundamentally change America by crashing her government and her society and remaking it in the model of a socialist dung heap (Cloward-Piven in a nutshell) is taking longer than had been expected.

See, these pesky conservatives refuse to go away.  We're "hanging in here like a hair in a biscuit!"  Crude?  Yeah.  Accurate?  Darned right!

Think about it.  Obama only has to defeat half the country.  Nearly half of America's citizens pay no taxes and have no "skin in the game."  They could not care less what happens to America so long as those "gov-mint" checks keep showing up in their bank accounts and/or mail boxes.

Unfortunately for the "Progressive/Marxists," America's conservative core will not surrender.

So the Obama revolutionaries push even harder.  They are relentless in their drive to transform America into a communist country and a police state.

The increase in Americans on the government dole is a major part of their scheme.  In fact it is the foundation upon which the plan to collapse the American economy is built.   It is also the corner stone of the strategy to collapse our constitutional representative form of government into a communist "republic," you know, like North Korea. 

Think about it.  Already the Cloward-Piven bunch has captured one half of America's citizens.  The government feeds, clothes, and houses them -- and even gives them a cell phone. -- for FREE!  There is no way under the sun that that 49 percent of Americans will ever support a form of government that demands they work for a living and contribute something, anything, to their country. 

Half of the country is made up of wards of the government/state.  Over the generations, responsibility has been bred and indoctrinated out of them.  They are now, for all intents and purposes, drones.

Generations of families on the dole have established that form of living as the "norm." within the drone community. 

But what about their indoctrination?

In an article by David Kupelian entitled: "Americans 'snapping' by the millions" Mr. Kupelian says the following:  "We need to realize that Americans could not have twice elected a leader as transcendentally unworthy of the presidency as Barack Obama without first having had their minds and hearts captured. Through constant leftist indoctrination, emotional manipulation, ruthless intimidation – and then being rewarded once they have “converted” – perhaps half of the American electorate has been programmed over the course of decades by a subversive school system and equally perverse “news” establishment. Truth be told, both institutions have become full-blown abominations, occupying as they do near-sacred stations of public trust in American civilization." SOURCE:  http://www.wnd.com/2013/04/americans-snapping-by-the-millions/

Mr. Kupelian is spot on.  The Progressive/Marxists have been at this a very long time.  It did not just spring up with Obama.  Obama just happens to be their willing co-conspirator believing, as he does, in the Cloward-Piven Strategy -- and -- having been groomed since childhood for just this task -- at just this time in history.

Years ago, I wrote of the America's roiling rage just below the surface.  With the added weight and effrontery of Obama and Cloward-Piven, with the audacious (even arrogant) behavior of Obama's minions in the various departments of government, that rage is beginning to break through to the surface.  

Stress is the order of the day in America.  Everyone, I mean EVERYONE (except the drone community), is on edge.  Nerves are stretched to the breaking point.  There is a sense that something is about to happen, something that will throw America into chaos.

Firearm sales are at historic levels.  Ammunition has, for the most part, been sold out across the nation.  Ammo dealers and gun dealers have stacks of back orders.  Ammo manufacturers say they are working overtime to turn out as much product as possible and yet, they are unable to meet the demand.

What's happening?  Well, that fifty percent of Americans -- not in Obama's orbit -- are preparing to defend their rights, their constitution.  They are preparing to defend the country many swore to defend in the oaths they took as members of America's military and as police officers, and sheriff's deputies, etc., plus -- the millions of Americans motivated by love of freedom and the determination to fight to preserve the country their ancestors fought, bled, and died to hand down to them.

The atmosphere in America today is electric.  Like the two poles of a magnet, the two political poles repel each other. 

The country is split into two nearly equal halves.  There is a near audible hum emanating from the energy built up on both sides.

The clash, when it comes, will be "biblical" in it's intensity.  Believe me, the scars left from the last American-on-American clash are still visible and still raw after 150 years -- at least in my beloved Dixie.

There is a pressure valve, however, to ease the pressure and stave off a nationwide explosion.  It is the mid-term election in November of 2014.  If we can make it that far without going to war with each other, we may have a chance.    

In order to stop the coming conflict between Americans, voters will have to vote for conservatives to hold the US House of Representatives -- and -- capture the US Senate.  It is the ONLY way to avoid a meltdown and the explosion that will tear the nation apart no matter who "wins" the conflict.

© J. D. Longstreet

Calling All Patriots!

My dear friend Patriot USA is in dire need of both funds and prayers.  As many know, Patriot USA had major spinal surgery this last month.  He is unable to work, unsure that he will have a job to return to, and the bills are piling up.  Recently he had to spend big bucks on the repairs to his car.  (OK his wife's car.)  Thus depleting his savings.  His wife is out of work and has one child in college and a child in High School.  Things are getting so bad that even AJ, his dog is feeling the pinch.

I know times are tight.  Heck I am short too, but Patriot's need is greater.  A few bucks his way will do wonders for his recovery and health.

Either click here and hit the side link to donate or you can donate directly by clicking here.  And remember Patriot in your prayers.

Thank you;

Findalis



Another Example of How Our Miseducation System is Failing Our Kids

Stolen From Stop The ACLU

This goes under the Whiskey Tango Foxtrot category.
Remember how you were taught in school how to add a series of numbers? Remember how you were told to write each set of numbers on top of each other, to stack them so you could then add them together to get a total?

Kids aren’t taught that any more. In fact, the system of “cubes, sheets, sticks and dots” they are taught now is so convoluted, involved and confusing that it often results in wrong answers. But correct answers isn’t the goal for today’s fetid school systems. “The process” is all that is cared about.
If you aren’t infuriated by this video…


Click here if the video fails to load.

These are unionized teachers perpetrating this crime on our kids, folks.

Remember that.
I don't know about you, but after the first 30 seconds I wanted to find the teacher and punch him or her out.  And we are suppose to train these children to be the engineers, doctors and scientists of the future.  Really?





au natural

Who's excited to start another week? Anyone? Yeah, me neither. It was another busy one around here and I could use a day or two to recover. A girl can dream.

Last week I started another refinishing project (I'll share details when its a bit further along) and it got me thinking about furniture in its natural state. No paint, just a bit of stain and a whole lot of beauty. Crazy, I know.

Now don't get me wrong, I love painted furniture as much as the next gal (as I've proven here, here and here) but I think every room can benefit from at least one piece of good old wood.

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How about you? Do you have any 'wood' around the house? Do you like yours stained dark, light or with a side of ketchup?

Syria is a "NO Win" for the US ... J. D. Longstreet

Syria is a "NO Win" for the US   ...   J. D. Longstreet
Syria is a "NO Win" for the US
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

**************

Don't know about you, but I haven't lost a cotton-picking thing in Syria! And I am not eager to have the US become entangled in another Middle Eastern civil war in which there are NO GOOD GUYS!

Involvement in the Syrian mess is a no win situation for the US. Any faction we back has the potential to turn the arms we provide them on us -- now or later.

The first thing the White House ought to do, it seems to me, is shut up!  Obama should stop creating so-called "red lines," "lines in the sand,"  and "game changer" scenarios. 

Assad is not afraid of Obama. Hardly anybody is, for that matter.  He is seen world wide as a motor-mouth with no spine to back up his threats.

Obama's pronouncements of future action in Syria are not taken seriously -- and with good reason. His empty threats are now seen as more comical than serious.   Frankly, it makes America look bad internationally, and it embarrasses many of us here at home.

Worst still, it nullifies America's implied power abroad.  Our allies look at us and wonder if we can be trusted any longer.  America's word is in question. To this ole southern boy it is worst, even, than that.  It means our HONOR is in question.

When one looks objectively at the Syrian mess, there simply are no good options for America. 

As the well qualified "armchair general" that I am, I an say without hesitation I see no way to "win" in Syria.  It looks, for all the world, like another Iraq and another Afghanistan.  The scenario I see is that we'd send in thousands of US troops (and materiel), and months, or years, later we leave having spent gobs of our treasure and gallons of our blood only to have Syria revert right back to the mess it is in currently -- even before the dust of our last exiting deuce-and-a-half has settled.

Gone are the days when the American military would land on the beaches of Syria and drive inwards all the way to he borders of Turkey, Iraq, Jordan, and Lebanon, cutting down all before it like a scythe.  That's not going to happen. 

If there is military operations against Syria, it will probably be in the form of cruise missiles lobed from ships standing well out in the Mediterranean Sea so as not to come in contact with Russian warships anchored or cruising just off Syria's shoreline.

There is considerable talk of imposing a "no-fly" zone over a part or parts of Syria.  As I understand it, this would create humanitarian zones in hopes that the Syria refugees now flooding surround countries could stay in relative safety inside their own country without fear of being shot or strafed from the air, bombarded by artillery, or fired upon by missile and rocket firing combat helicopters.

Establishing no-fly zones is not easy. It entails dong extensive damage to the target country's air defense system, likely its air force, most certainly bombing air fields and landing strips and shooting down Syrian aircraft in the air and on the ground, and even clearing and maintaining an artillery free zone for more than a score of miles around the designated humanitarian zone.

And the maintenance of the no fly zone would be extraordinarily expensive for it requires twenty-four hour a day air patrols to insure that, indeed, nothing flies in than zone other than approved aircraft.  It is NOT an easy task.

The US is the world's premier breaking and entering military.  In our own form of blitzkrieg, or "lightening war," we have the ability along with the equipment and the combat tested and hardened troops to smash our way into a country swiftly and violently.

The real warriors in the US military will tell you that imposing a no fly zone anywhere over Syria will, no doubt, be answered by Assad's military, which will then have to be dealt with.  That may, very well, entail US boots on the ground and what every US commander hates -- "mission creep."  Next thing you know, we are in a full blown war in Syria with no pre-planned end game in place.

Taking out, or securing Syria's stockpile of chemical weapons wold be a nightmare.  It would require thousands of US troops on the ground searching for those chemical weapons, which Intel informs has been moved to various locations in the country. 

And what about a coalition of like minded countries joining America in Syria?  Well, according to our newly minted Secretary of Defense, Chuck Hagel,  there is no appetite for any such coalition at present.  His exact words reportedly were:  "no international or regional consensus on supporting armed intervention now exists."

The British and the French can usually be counted on to watch our backs and, I expect, they'd be right in there with us.  But there is a strong possibility they would be it so far as a coalition is concerned.

It is clear America is edging ever closer to a reluctant military involvement in Syria and this commentator is not convinced the American people are with the President if, that is, he actually does decide to commit militarily to Syria.  I know at least one commentator who is certainly not ready for another Middle Eastern War unless, of course, it is with Iran.

Iran is a whole "nuther story" for another day.

© J. D. Longstreet

Wild Bill for America "Little Less Talk, Lot More Action"

A call to action by from that believe in Freedom and Truth.

Details from my closet: Spring inspiration



my NEW Celine espadrilles 

DELPOZO 2013 Collection- daily inspiration-

Springboard  collage inspiration on the wall

MeChar clutch

Boucheron  parfume cream (one of my favorite)

Fuzzy bag:)

 my DIY necklaces


On Sundays I always like to take photos of little details and things that inspires me... so here are some photos that I took during this month, another round of "details from my closet "( you also can see HERE , HERE and HERE details from my closet from the past).

Have a wonderful Sunday everyone and thank you for your visit!






Is Abortion Murder? ... J. D. Longstreet

Is Abortion Murder?   ...   J. D. Longstreet
Is Abortion Murder?
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

*************

To many Americans abortion is an offense so serious that capital punishment would be considered appropriate.

Of course, it must be against the law first -- and it isn't.

Personally, I simply cannot think of a deed more dastardly, more evil, more repulsive than deliberately killing babies.

In the Scriptures, if someone injured a pregnant women so severely that the infant inside her died, that person's life was taken -- even though it may have been an accident.

"It is unconscionable that 1.3 million unborn and even born babies are murdered annually in America. To put this atrocity into perspective, 1.3 million is even more than the number of Jews the Nazis gassed annually during the Holocaust."  SOURCE:  http://www.godvoter.org/abortion-bible-verses.html

My personal feelings on the matter are these: I do not support abortion, except in the case of incest, rape, or when the life of the mother is in jeopardy.  In the case of incest and rape, if the mother does not wish to keep the child then, I would prefer the child be given up for adoption rather than aborted. 

"Rape and incest deserve one further note: They (thank God) represent a relatively uncommon cause of pregnancy - and figure in less than 2 percent of abortions. The other 98 percent are done for the sake of convenience (not that of the baby). Abortion represents the most common surgical procedure performed in America today."  SOURCE:  http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Evils%20in%20America/Abortion%20is%20Murder/physician_explains.htm 

Did you know the term "Murder" applies only to humans?  You cannot "murder" any other species on the planet.  You can kill them, you can slaughter them, but you cannot murder them. Why is that? 

Well, let's begin at the beginning... in the book of Genesis in the Bible.

Genesis chapter 9, verse 6, says the following: "Whoever sheds man's blood, By man his blood shall be shed, For in the image of God He made man."

It is obvious, then, that a human life is precious in the sight of God.  The life of a totally innocent baby, I would think, would be super-precious in the eyes of the Creator of all life.

All murders are homicide, but not all homicides are murder.  Homicide defined is:  The killing of a human being by another human being. 

An accidental killing of one human by another is homicide, but it is not murder.  The intentional killing of a human by another human is also homicide, but as the act was intentional, it is, therefore, murder.

I believe that human life begins at the moment of conception.  It is an article of faith for me.  I cannot prove that life begins at that instant, but, I BELIEVE that it does. It is MY  unshakable belief without need for proof or evidence.

More than 50 million babies have been slaughtered since the US Supreme Court decided Roe v. Wade back in 1973.  Nobody even really talks that much about this issue anymore.  For many it is NOT an issue and for those for whom it IS an issue, there are the threats, spoken and unspoken, to motivate them to remain silent and/or hold their peace.
 
"A Department of Homeland Security report that was released in January 2012 says that if you are “anti-abortion”, you are a potential terrorist.  Unfortunately, there have also been other government reports that have also identified “anti-abortion” protesters as potential threats."  SOURCE:  http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/19-facts-about-abortion-in-america-that-should-make-you-very-sick

Today America has become a vast "killing field" where the blood of innocents has been, and continues to be, spilled my the millions. Call it infanticide, if you will, but it has become a full blown massacre. The blood of those innocents has stained America with an eternal guilt that can never be cleansed from our nation's soul.

Consider this:  "America needs no words from me to see how your decision in Roe v. Wade has deformed a great nation. The so-called right to abortion has pitted mothers against their children and women against men. It has sown violence and discord at the heart of the most intimate human relationships. It has aggravated the derogation of the father's role in an increasingly fatherless society. It has portrayed the greatest of gifts -- a child -- as a competitor, an intrusion, and an inconvenience. It has nominally accorded mothers unfettered dominion over the independent lives of their physically dependent sons and daughters.

And, in granting this unconscionable power, it has exposed many women to unjust and selfish demands from their husbands or other sexual partners. Human rights are not a privilege conferred by government. They are every human being's entitlement by virtue of his humanity. The right to life does not depend, and must not be declared to be contingent, on the pleasure of anyone else, not even a parent or a sovereign."
  -- Mother Teresa

I repeat, the stain on America's soul is indelible.  There will be a day of reckoning from which we cannot escape.

© J. D. Longstreet

Floral meets Leather





Just a casual outfit for a busy day but still with my trademark by injecting a popping color here and there( BLUE color this time). Actually this time is a bitter- sweet combination of styles: floral girly tunic shirt meets masculine military jacket and this is the result!
Have  a wonderful and relaxing weekend everyone!



                                                                               Cuff bracelet: thanks to COOEE.seHere
                                                                               Jacket: thanks to Tokyo LaundryHere
                                                                               Tunic shirt: Zara
                                                                               Pants: H&M/ I love this pair too Here
                                                                               Shoes: thanks to PersunMallHere
                                                                               Sunglasses: Ray Ban/ Here
                                                                               Bag: c/o PLNDR